Baner Balewadi DP
Introduction A Development Plan (or DP) is a statutory land use plan for the city. It is created under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act (MR&TP Act). It is prepared every 20 years or so keeping in mind the expected growth of the city and the need for space for various amenities, facilities and utilities that are needed to ensure the health and well being of residents. Pune's DP is now being made in two parts. The 23 fringe villages, that have recently been incorporated into the Municipal limits and the old Pune area. The process works something like this # Urban and Town planners prepare a plan by doing various studies (demographic, socio-economic, current or existing land use etc) # This draft plan is published for public consultations. # The plan is then sent to the State Government for approval. # The State Government can also make modifications to the submitted plan. But if it makes substantial changes, then it must re-publish the plan and allow 60 days for people to object to the changes that are made. Any voting citizen of India can object to the modifications. # The State then appoints a committee to hear every objection made. # After due consideration it can make the requisite alterations and the plan is finally approved. # It is now the responsibility of the Municipality to implement the plan. For this it acquires the reserved lands under the plan and puts in the amenities (schools, hospitals etc), facilities (gardens, museums etc) and utilities (sewage treatment plants, roads etc). Problems There are several reasons why this "plan" doesn't work and we still end up with chaotic cities with inadequate infrastructure. # The plan itself takes very long from the time it is initiated to the time it is approved. As long as 7-8 years. A lot changes during just that time period. # The plans are notoriously sensitive to projections. In fast growing economies and rapid rural-urban migration situations, the city often grows faster and in non-predictable ways. Most provisions in the plan start falling short immediately. # Land that is reserved in the plan is very hard to acquire. The Municipality doesn't have the resources for land acquisition and due to legal battles it takes forever. # Worse still, land acquired is often undeveloped for the purpose it was acquired for. This is true of gardens, low income housing, sewage treatment plants, hospitals etc. This is mainly because of the lack of capacity of the Municipality to plan and implement these projects and non-allocation of sufficient funds for planned activities. A large part of the budget is spent on what is called non-planned activities, meaning ad hoc projects that are shoved in every year. # There is a huge vested interest in people wanting to remove the reservation on their land. The State Government has the power to do this, so it leads to massive corruption. Land reserved for low income housing, schools, open spaces are regularly changed into commercial and residential use by builders who have powerful lobbies. # Public at large is mostly unaware of the Development Plan, what it contains and hence unable to protest changes to it that will make their life worse. # The Act provides for making changes to the plan as and when needed. While this is needed to adjust to changing conditions on the ground, it also creates opportunities for vested interests to further dilute the plan. Prof Aneeta Benniger of CDSA explains what a Development Plan is and the process for objecting to the modifications made. Krmm2q33dII The 23 villages Development Plan The DP for the 23 fringe villages has been prepared and submitted to the State Government for approval. The current issue has arisen from the fact that the State Government, clearly under pressure from vested interests has deleted all reservations for public amenities. It hasn't given any reasons for this. Also the State Government failed to provide the maps with the changes. Only after a hue and cry did it make the plans available. Citizens now have 60 days to object to the modifications. Call to Action Changes to Aundh Baner maps The following maps of Aundh-Baner area from the PMC web-site indicate a revision after making changes. These have been pointed out by Maj. Gen. S.C.N. Jatar. This is the original map from the PMC website, while this is the revised map. Both are in PDF form.